Coping: True Local Time and Precision Thinking

(Tacoma, WA) I have not been able to sleep much on this trip. Reason being that we are in an unfamiliar time zone. The publishing time for UrbanSurvival and Peoplenomics is the ungodly hour of 6 AM this far west.

I like to keep the time the same, because so many readers are on the East Coast. Nevertheless, it brings me to one of my favorite rant points: Why do we insist on fooling ourselves with time zones?

Every few years, the debate over Daylight Time makes the rounds, too. But again, we are so stupid and so gullible, that we believe assigning a different number will somehow influence the Sun to operate differently. It doesn’t.

Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) is how militaries operate. That’s because it makes sense, and it’s one of the few things the military has gotten right.

If we were going to do time “right” there are only two solutions. The simple (UTC) and the technologically precise.

On this last, I would suggest TLT, or true local time.

As a recovering sailor, I know how important it is to understand the Local Hour Angle (LHA) when working out the local problems with a sextant and H.O. 249 sight reduction tables.

The local hour angle is unique for every place on earth at a particular moment of sidereal time, which is to say, for a position of the Sun relative to the Earth.

Think of it like lining up a DirecTV dish. The Satellites in geosynchronous orbit are neatly positioned relative to degrees east or west of the UTC line through Greenwich. Which makes sense when you point a dish into the sky looking for, oh, Galaxy 3 at 97-degrees west.

All terribly consistent, don’t you see?

True Local Time has not been adopted yet, but since humankind is overcome with reductionism disease, and we fool ourselves into believing a lot of idiocy, I figure it’s only a matter of time (sorry) until someone builds the cell/GPS enabled True Local Time app.

The way this would work is pretty simple: Anywhere you are on earth at 6:20 AM TLT (true local time) the Sun would be in the same place in the sky.

As things are now, the local arrival of Sunrise (or Sunset) is call over the place. The way I figure, the sun should always crack the horizon at 6:30 AM, so twice a year with true local time, you’d see the Sun’s upper limb (top of the sphere) peek out at 6:30:000.000 AM TLT.

It’s hard enough to optimize human behavior and things like our circadian rhythms that attempt to keep us all sane.

But here lately, wherever I look, the propensity of people to “do stupid” seems almost overwhelming.

Logically, there are only two ways to “do” time. A correct local hour angle (sun at the same place in the sky for everyone at a given time (time being in true local time) or a completely externalized reference like UTC.

This isn’t the only area where human delusion shows through.

Another example is in how state (and other political) boundaries are built. They don’t take population into account correctly. And, just like the mish-mash of time zones, the mish-mash of political power based on population is another area of high delusion.

Let’s take California, for example.

When the lines were drawn on maps, there was no one there. But now? No only are there too many people (and did I mention not enough water) but they wield too much political power.

When the state had 5-million, or so, back in the dawn of time, there was something approaching political parity. Now? California has outsized everything. Politically speaking, Arizona is a dwarf star in comparison.

Let me show you how political boundaries should be drawn, and I will use California, as an example.

When there were these 5-million people in the whole state, it would have “original” boundaries.

But as the population grew, the borders of Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon would be expanded. This would be done to equalize population between the states. It would “level the playing field” for all kinds of problems, including return to the states of a portion of Federal income tax.

Right now, when funds are divided up, we first have to do advanced mathematics in order to figure out who should get how much in the way of Free Lunch.

Under Ure’s State Flex Lines, all states would be created equal, at least in terms of human capital.

You see what has happened along the Mexico border?

If we were using Flex Boundaries, as the number of people in San Diego went UP, the borders around the city (city limits) would compress in. So that Rancho Mirage, or wherever, would still have the same population power.

What we have seen happen so often is that city empire builders gobble up land as fast as they can because the more people they can shove under their political wing, the more workers and income (empire) they can accrue.

In terms of Congressional districts, picture a system where the power of both rural and urban would be equalized better: When city pop went up, the districts would shrink effectively, so that the balance between common sense rural folks and runaway lunatics in big cities would be more balanced.

As is, we see that cities, congressional districts, and states run over policy land mines all the time because they are not held in check by flexible borders.

Hence, in terms of national political influence, the State of California would be expected to (at some level) support illegal immigration because it supports more money from the central government and justifies more power.

On the other hand, under my plan, the boundary with Arizona, over the years, would have moved from west of Phoenix, first down to Thermal and Palm Springs. And then as illegals poured in and so forth, we should how have the Arizona border just east of Alhambra and Pasadena-Glendale.

What would happen is that Arizona’s influence would have kept pace.

What’s more, it would be a marvelous make-work to put people to work. For example, thousands of people would be employed with the biannual adjustment to signs. City Limits and state naming signs would all have to be changed.

On the other hand, the populations would always be similar. Population of Arizona might swell to 40-million (or whatever) but the size of California would shrink.

States that have small political influence now, like New Mexico, would expand dramatically, and it would make more sense economically, since the calculations on dividing up budget spoils would be totally simplified.

Give each state 1/50th of the pie and that’s that. And then (in the interest of stability) hand out government projects (like defense) on the same basis.

This may seem like a hollow whine, but without a radical rethink, California will quickly become a bi-lingual state (not that it isn’t already) and the tearing down of American by ending our common language will be well underway.

Just as political divisions should be drawn on maps so that populations are equal, at a country level, they should be drawn based on language. Under this common sense approach, San Diego and San Antonio would have already been ceded to Mexico.

And then there’s the matter of how Russia’s move in the Crimea was somewhat harmonized with the languages spoken in Ukraine.

I suppose we shouldn’t get too worked up over the ill results that are happening. But as I see it, after not enough local hour angle of sleep, many of our root problems as a country c an be traced back to making poor compromises of a political nature.

Absent some “hard line thinking” compromise just means too many cooks are ruining the stew.

One nation, divisible by language, divided by time zones, and victims of “flex money” can’t have a happy outcome.

As Ure sees it, the Constitution didn’t say we would teach ESL to whoever showed up. Short-term programs to transition into Engrish? Fine with me. We are an inclusive country. But language frames how we think (or don’t).

We’ll soon have Yemeni as a Second Language. The runaway do-gooders are determined to blow up the population of the US before they blow up the population of the US, if that makes any sense. Along the way, look for terrible “brand confusion” to totally eff with your mind as everyone knew that previously YSL was Yves St. Laurent but soon come: Yemeni as a Second Language.

Pending massive Syria Immigration will screw up IT Departments since they thing SSL means one thing, but it will soon be Syrian as a Second Language (SSL).

I’m not particularly sympathetic to global refugees, I suppose. When global humanitarian efforts take place on a grand scale, what they really do is encourage future despots to “go for it” and it’s like do-overs for bad children. They stop the whining now, but you end up with implacable spoiled brats.

And that’s how the world is looking…

It is, according to my clock, later than we think. Unless we stand up for a little Ameri-Glue, we’re hosed. And three key ingredients of the glue to rebind us are a single time zone, equalization of political entity size to reduce intergovernmental empiring, and, oh yeah, a common language.

Hard stuff, this logical hard-headed thinking. But when we’re over-run with people who hate us, and who will crumple America as the melting pot, creating an incomprehensible potpourri of everything from languages to their own forms of law, to remembers this chat: When we could still save the “glue that binds us”.

Consider the Chinese and Irish who came to America and built fine futures without second language programs. Hard work and enterprise do win in the end. We’re all brothers and sisters in the end, and all field hands for the corporate massahs. But we gotta stay together and all get on the same page.

But I guess than makes me a Commonist.

Maybe I should go back to bed. Too much logical thinking in the day makes my head hurt.

12 Comments

Becky Vascellaro on June 25, 2015 at 19:11

My daughter received a scholarship from the National Italian American Foundation. At the young people’s banquet Antonin Scalia gave an outstanding speech to the recipients. He told them remember your heritage but always remember that America was the country they came to in order to be free and pursue their dreams. America is their country and they should all work for its betterment and they owe America their allegiance. And the Italians like my husbands family did not come expecting ESL- Italian either!

Me thinks there is NO way to change state “outline” borders. I would like to suggest, however that any city population that is equal to or greater than the rest of the state population become a “city state” – allowed ONE senator and how many ever reps otherwise becomes applicable. The state of NY and Ill, me thinks would appreciate it. California would become just so many city states – and probably no longer ruled from Sacramento – but some place like San Bernardino.

Glad did I live and gladly die – and I lay me down with a will = so happy to have lived when I did – and glad I’m not one of the grandchildren – I was never really good at languages – hardly literate in American English – imagine if it were Scots that were invading rather than those from the south?

George, You are on vacation. Perhaps a number of your readers are, too. You don’t have to post anything, let alone get up two hours earlier than usual! I really enjoyed the airplane shots of the Cascades. Why not give us a few paragraphs of your travel diary and lots of photos? Please, for all your readers, savor your vacation. Sleep later! P.S.: I LOVE daylight savings time.

Bill Taylor on June 25, 2015 at 14:07

The thing about local time, is that it’s local, so if I go from Atl GA to New York, in the Summer, the time will change about an hour. The time changes going East and West, and North and South, depending on the season.

bryce on June 25, 2015 at 13:46

Maybe you are prone to those extra solar coming in up north instead of being down south,maybe that’s the headache cause ,you being an xtra sensitive

Bill Taylor on June 25, 2015 at 13:45

If Californians were all of the sudden in Arizona, many would be thrown in jail for growing and possessing medical pot, so they would have to move west into CA which would make AZ grow which would make Californians move west to CA, seems slightly more insane than existing policy.

bryce on June 25, 2015 at 13:43

Sounds like another deterrent to me

Robert Ramsey on June 25, 2015 at 11:36

If you have not had the opportunity to listen to Nelson Haggard song. ” ITS ALL GOING TO POT ” Give it a listen. I think it could be worth considering having these to over to set up your music room if not already completed and enjoy some of the finer points of recording. For sure Willie didn’t let this song get away Sort of fits his new business. Several you tube videos. When every thing has been going to pot it sure makes for a good laugh to see these old duffers having a good time. Thanks

h on June 25, 2015 at 11:10

Uh, shouldn’t you say 6:00 AM, not 6:30?

George Ure on June 25, 2015 at 12:55

Nw…if I meant 18:30:00000-0 I woulda writ it

M.D.S. on June 25, 2015 at 09:46

George, have you got something extra in your ‘Wheaties’ this morning? (I’m not saying ‘good’!)

You’ve managed to conflate the thoughts behind the election of the House of Representatives and the Senate . . .

And blithely use the examples of the Irish and the Chinese as fantastic examples of American assimilation. In the former case, conditions were so bad that during the Civil War (War Between The States) there were huge riots in New York City . . . and still during the presidential election of 1960, some were claiming that Kennedy would be following the dictates of the Pope.

The Chinese who managed to come to the U.S. were subject to some extremely racist laws even as they helped to build the western part of this country, and still today, unless you live in a heavily-populated part of the country, few people are accepting of Chinese culture and religion . . .

People complain that ‘groups of who-ever’ form associations – it is an American right, whether Irish, ‘Teachers’ Union, Manufacturing group, or even LGBTs . . . If say, you build model railroads and want to ‘hang out’ with other model railroad types – fine! (As long as you are not illegal . . .)